I have just returned from a short holiday in the sun. And it has left me wanting more! I’m cautiously looking forward to swapping my long trousers for shorts again. To sitting in beach traffic, impatient to get there. And of course: to discovering the latest ice cream flavours. And it turns out there are quite a few newcomers in the freezer aisle!
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The moments when I eat ice cream are usually spontaneous and on the go. If I walk past a good ice cream parlour, I give in. So it had been a while since I’d properly looked at the ice cream freezer. In my mind, traditional ice cream brands like Hertog and Häagen-Dazs still reigned supreme. When I stood in front of the freezer recently, I was surprised that I didn’t see these brands immediately. What I did see was that two trends have clearly found their way into this category: Blurring and Ethical brands.
Blurring
Blurring is about boundaries fading. In this case, I see the boundaries blurring between the categories in which brands are active. For instance, I noticed that brands like CoolBest, DubbelFris, Taksi and Katja now also turn up in the ice cream freezer. I wondered whether brands from other categories had gone before them and whether those introductions were successful. For example, I saw that Bavaria introduced Radler ice cream in 2018. More flavours followed after the initial introduction, but now I can no longer find them in the shops.
That got me thinking about what an organisation can gain from blurring. For instance, I can imagine that Bavaria’s primary goal was to increase brand awareness in a playful way and that sales targets came second. I am curious whether it was a conscious choice by Bavaria to take the product off the market or whether it simply didn’t perform well enough in the long run.
Ethical Brands
Then the second trend: Ethical brands. Brands that want to make the world a little bit better. For example, the brand Little Cow & Cookies, which communicates “Great taste, small hoof print”. The ethical angle runs through every part of the product. The ice cream is made from organic milk, with cookies made from a European recipe (whatever that may mean) and packaged in a biodegradable tub.
The story is presented with humour and the flavours sound good. Yet something stopped me from choosing this ice cream: looking at the packaging didn’t make my mouth water. Is it because I can’t see the ice cream? Because it is positioned near ‘healthier choices’ like the brand Oppo Brothers, or because ‘doing good for the world’ and ‘indulging’ don’t go together in my head? Perhaps a bit of all of that. It shows me that doing good for the world isn’t enough on its own; ultimately, my needs as a consumer still drive my choice.
So, which ice cream did I buy? The luxury Italian gelato from a supermarket own-label, because at that moment it came closest to the ice cream parlour I’d been dreaming of all day. And it was delicious!
